Disqualifying Faults

Although not exactly contradictory to any specific AKC rule, unintentionally producing pups that deviate from the standard is expected when breeding, after all genetics are not always predictable. Selling them is something that is basically up to the breeders judgement on how best to proceed. The ethical thing, in my opinion, is to place a pup with a DQ (disqualifying fault) like over/under height, misaligned bite, or less seriously non standard color, in a screened pet home on a spay/neuter contract.

AKC makes no demands that a breeder do this, only that the breeder abide ethically when breeding along with following some other pitifully inadequate rules mainly concerning registration. AKC is after all, primarily a registration body involved in the pedigree sports of purebred dogs, although the more recent approach is to profess a passion for all things dog, purebred or mix. Some breeders really walk a fine line, however, on the ethics front. They profess to abide by their breed clubs code of ethics, but then I see well known breeders with dogs in the top 20 selling Mame Shiba on their webpages.

“Mame Male Shiba available Aug 31st!I named him “Hamburgular” because he loves Hamburger.He loves to be held, will be very small.sold on a Pet Contract – Please Call me”
http://www.pets4you.com/pages/morningstar.html

What am I to make of all this? To me, this promotes poor breeding practice by endorsing fad breeding. While not exactly violating any AKC rules, like improperly registering a litter or falsifying a pups birth in order to gain registry with NIPPO or JKC, this is a big ethical DQ in my book regardless.